Sharon not frightened by ancient Jewish death curse

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Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has dismissed any suggestion
he feared for his life after Jewish extremists opposed to his
looming Gaza pullout cast an ancient death curse on him.

"I am never frightened about this sort of thing, not in the past
and not now," Mr Sharon told reporters during an official visit to
Paris.

"This type of threat has not changed how I spend my time," he
added.

In a northern Israeli cemetery presided over by Rabbi Yossef
Dayan, about 20 radicals held a "pulsa dinura" ceremony at dawn
last Friday imploring God to strike down the Prime Minister, local
media has widely reported.

Far-right Israeli activists held a "pulsa dinura" to pray for
the death of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, a few
days before he was killed by a Jewish extremist for trying to make
peace with the Palestinians.

Rabbi Dayan read out the curse at that ritual, too.

The group urged "the angels of destruction" to kill Mr Sharon,
participants said, stressing that a human assassination attempt on
the Prime Minister was "futile" given his massive security
protection.

The ceremony took place near the grave of Shlomo Ben Yossef, a
member of the ultra-nationalist Jewish movement Beitar, who was
hanged in 1938 under British mandate Palestine for taking part in
an attempted attack on an Arab bus.

As befits tradition, only those who are married, meaning no
widowers or divorcees, people aged over 40 and the bearded were
able to attend the event, Rabbi Dayan was quoted as saying.

Baruch Ben Yossef, one of the participants, said the spot was
ideal.

"He is Sharon's antitheses. Ben Yossef sacrificed his soul for
the people of Israel, while Sharon is robbing the nation. We hope
the Lord will take him from us," he was quoted as saying by the
online edition of the top-selling newspaper Yediot
Aharonot.

Israel's chief Ashkenazi Rabbi, Yona Metzger, has denounced the
rite in the strongest possible terms for contravening the values of
Judaism.

"I condemn any aggression, verbal or physical, which contravenes
the values of the Jewish religion, particularly against a prime
minister of Israel.

"It is a ceremony without the slightest religious basis and it
is pure coincidence if Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated after being
subject to a 'pulsa dinura'."